Barroom Brawl
by Kitt Chaos
Summary: A Vampire Hunter D and Joss Whedon's Angel silly little crossover story. Vampires, angst and alcohol should never mix!


**Barroom Brawl**

"It's been awhile since I had good ale." The man turned the bottom of his tankard up as he drained the last of his drink. "Thank you." 

D nodded. 

"What do I owe you?" 

"I'll take care of it," D told him. 

"I meant for the information. Wesley told me you are a bounty hunter." The man's dark eyes bore D's penetrating gaze as few could tolerate. "Such useful information isn't free." 

"If you stop Renchand in your world, I won't have to deal with him here," D noted. 

"Bringing me back to the point. You can't collect a bounty for a dead vampire." 

D reigned in his sudden flash of temper. The man facing him was a sired vampire, not one born. He was also young, not having marked his first millennium yet. The unrelieved blackness of his outlandish garb, the affected air of silent angst and his self-important bearing made D weary. Angel meant well. It wasn't Angel's fault that to D's way of thinking, he was yet still a child. 

"There are plenty of vampires remaining for me to claim bounties on," D finally said aloud. 

Why wouldn't the guy just let him pay him?! Angel fumed slightly. He didn't want to leave this world owing any debt to anyone. The powers that be knew he had enough debts to atone for on his soul already! Angel had thought he had everyone beat in the angst department until he met this vampire hunter. He couldn't put his finger on it, but this guy just seemed to ooze silent, long-suffering forbearance out of every pore. It ticked him off. 

"So what's your story anyway?" Angel balanced his chair on its two back legs, crossed his arms behind his head and stared. "A bounty hunter who doesn't want to be paid? One who's willing to let someone else claim his target?" Red flashed deep in D's eyes. _Ah, there is a spark of something there!_ Angel thought. 

"My story is none of your concern. I have not been asked to hunt Renchand, he is in your world anyway and one vampire less will make little difference to this world or my task," D replied tonelessly. 

Angel tipped his chair forward abruptly at that, thrusting his chin to within an inch of D's. 

"So why do it? Why hunt them? They are your own people after all!" 

"As are humans. Maybe I just...feel for the underdog. You have what you need. You should go." 

"I just want to know something about the person I'm indebted to," Angel countered crossly. 

"Why must you be such a martyr?" D finally asked. He was feeling reckless. Maybe it was the ale. Maybe Angel, obnoxiously noble as he tried to be, talking of debts and such, had pushed one button too many. "What's your story, stripling? If it was simply self-loathing that you are now a vampire you would have ended it years ago." 

Maybe it was the ale. Maybe it was the red fire hidden deep in D's eyes, or his very bored air. Maybe Angel wanted to shock him. Maybe Angel just felt as though D might somehow understand. 

He found himself telling it all, in a low tone while he stared at the whorls and knots in the wood grain of the bar table between them. How he'd been sired. Some of the horrors Angelus had committed. The gypsies' curse, returning his soul into a being that was supposed to remain soulless as a way to punish him. Improbably loving the Slayer, being sent to hell by her, losing her finally, loving her still, even now... The powers that be. Being called as a Champion. And finally, the last turn of the gypsies' curse, that even though as a being with a soul he could feel love, and he did, that to act upon it, to achieve even one moment of bliss would render him again into the evil he tried to fight so hard against. 

Unburdened, lightened in soul, Angel glanced up wondering what D had thought of his impromptu confession. Maybe D would be surprised at all Angel had to bear. Maybe he'd be impressed at how well Angel did at it. There was nothing as clear and simple as self-loathing troubling him! 

D snickered. 

"What a thimbleful of suffering, to make you so miserable," he said pityingly. 

"What?!" 

"Don't do it, D!" a disembodied voice said suddenly. "You'll hate yourself in the morning!" 

"My father is Dracula..." D began. 

"Woah, Dracula himself. The Big D. Oops. That'd actually be you I guess... The Big Drac, Daddy-O... Fangs for the memories..." 

"You know nothing of suffering, youngster," D interrupted softly. 

"And you do? C'mon, I can tell, you barely feel anything at all!" Angel claimed, poking D's forearm repeatedly in the mindlessly stupid way of someone who's had too much to drink. 

"Didya feel that?" Poke. "How about now?" Poke. "Huh? Huh? Huh?" 

"Stop it," D told him. 

"Huh? Now? How about now?" Poke, poke, POKE. 

D's first blow took Angel off his stool to crash into the far wall. D walked calmly to the center of the room and watched as it cleared of everyone but Angel in the next five seconds. 

"Oh, now you've gone and done it. I'm gonna hafta fight you!" Angel warned, standing up and wiping his mouth. D nodded. 

From outside, the former bar patrons watched as the walls of the bar shook. The sounds of destruction, bodies hitting and breaking furniture, smashing into the ground or the walls and the sound many of them knew intimately well, of flesh hitting on flesh, continued for half of forever. Finally, the crashing noises ceased. The walls stood steady. The bar owner looked uncertainly at the crowd gathered outside his bar and tiptoed carefully to the door. He could hear a voice speaking, but he couldn't quite make out the words. 

"As for suffering," D stated as he stood over the prone Angel. He slowly removed his glove and turned his hand palm down toward Angel. 

"What are YOU lookin' at?!" Left Hand demanded. The parasite squinted at him suddenly. "Gonna have a shiner tomorrow! Serves you right too! Do you have any idea how much I'm goin' to ache tomorrow? You'll just hurt here and there where D hit you, I'm gonna feel it all over! Just had to sit down and get all chummy and talkative over drinks, didn't you? D! You KNOW I hate it when you fight with your fists! Yeah, the occasional hit or blow in a battle is to be expected, but to be balled up and shoved against someone repeatedly is abuse! Abuse I tell ya!" 

"Day in and day out, every minute of every day, part of me for so long that I hear him in my thoughts," D said tonelessly. "Tell me, Angel, which one of us has it worse?" 

Angel just stared up at D while the gibbering creature in, actually IN, D's left hand continued to rant. Angel wanted to kill it after just a moment of hearing its weird, horrible voice. He'd thought he'd seen everything. He was wrong. 

"How long?" Angel finally asked as he dragged himself to his feet. 

"How old are you?" 

"Four hundred years, plus a little," Angel answered. D raised an eyebrow at that. He'd underestimated Angel. He thought Angel was older. 

"Take your age, and multiply that by four. Longer than that," D told him. 

"Wow. Does it ever shut up?" 

"Almost never." 

"Why haven't you killed yourself?" Angel asked. 

D snorted. "Too much to do. Take care of Renchand. That's payment enough for the information. And the ale." 

D walked over, stood the table they'd been sitting at on its now-wobbly legs again, picked up his hat, placed it on his head, nodded in Angel's direction once, and left what remained of the bar. 

Angel looked around at the damage he and D had caused. The bar was all but smoking in its ruin. The owner tentatively poked his head in the door, pulling it open fully and entering as the devastation presented itself before his horrified eyes. 

"Who's gonna pay for all this?" he bellowed. 

Angel just then spied what D had left on the table when he retrieved his hat. He scooped it up and handed it to the man. 

"D will," Angel said. "Nice guy. I shouldn't have hit him. He's got more than enough to deal with!" 

~end~ 

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Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get! 

stargarde@stargarde.com   
  



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